1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the cutting of frozen food, and pertains more particularly to a method and apparatus for slicing fish sticks from the lower ends of vertically arrayed slabs or logs of frozen fish or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, fish sticks have been sawed from the ends of frozen fish slabs or logs. It has been found, though, that the sawing action produces an appreciable amount of "sawdust" which, while being reclaimable, nonetheless reduces the number of sticks that can be obtained from each slab or log.
Owing to the loss by reason of the sawdust resulting from the sawing operation, although not a total loss, it is obvious that the reclaimed material does not bring the price that it would if the fish sticks could be cut without any significant loss. Inasmuch as the problem has been recognized previously, there have been produced power-operated cleavers or knives; one such prior art apparatus, which is known to us, has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,867,858 granted on Feb. 25, 1975 to Tsuchiya et al. The drawback that has proved to be most noticeable as far as the alluded to prior art apparatus is concerned has been that the resulting fish sticks are disoriented and the randomly assumed positions make it more difficult as far as carrying out further processing operations, such as breading and battering the individual fish sticks.
Additionally, the patented apparatus mentioned above is restricted as far as the rate at which the sticks can be sliced from the frozen slabs or logs of fish. Still further, the apparatus, when employed to cut relatively thin fish sticks, does not assure that they will not have some curl present.